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Together with its longstanding international partner universities, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies invites researchers from the humanities and social sciences, as well as artists, activists and political actors to present their work at the 6th International Forum on Global South Studies. This year’s Forum examines the possible meanings of ‘doing futures’ and their implications for today’s context of widespread uncertainty. The intensification of uncertainty on a global scale makes the future, even in the short term, increasingly unpredictable and precarious. Based on the idea that the future is a ‘cultural fact’ (Appadurai 2013), we do not think of it as singular and universal, but prefer to see it as plural, including marginal, alternative and entangled futures. We therefore propose to reflect on the difficulties, obstacles and new possibilities in the way societies and individuals in the Global South construct their futures and project themselves into them.
We start from the idea that anxieties about the future, precariousness and uncertainty can be a powerful catalyst for human creativity (Nowotny 2016), even if the futures thus conceived would have to be classified as ‘fragile futures’ (Botha 2014). As grand teleological narratives and projections into the distant future become increasingly untenable, we feel it is more promising to think in terms of near-future (West-Pavlov 2019) as the only types of future that can be envisaged from a precarious present. Understanding near-future implies to approach these phenomena with the assistance of ‘proximity as method’ (Flemmer et al. 2024) and by mobilising, for example, Lauren Berlant’s notion of the meanwhile (2022), an in-between time that refers to a period of indeterminate transition. Agentivity and the principle of hope (Bloch 1954-59; Mbembe 2020) could thus be approached through practices such as débrouillardise and social bricolage, with their character of improvisation, creativity and ingenuity (Sangue-Fotso & Ngouane 2023).
As a transcontinental and transdisciplinary space for discussion, the Forum favours perspectives that take into account the specificities of the Global South, particularly epistemologies and theories from the South (Santos 2014; Comaroff and Comaroff 2012). We thus intend to foreground perspectives such as Amerindian and African indigenous cosmopolitics (Viveiros de Castro 2012; Effa 2015) , and ‘worlds in the making’ (de la Cadena 2015), Latin American feminist and decolonial practices, critiques of coloniality, structural violence and debates on epistemic justice (Segato 2003; Gago 2020). In addition, Afro-decolonial theories (Adjari 2024) play a significant role into our field of research as well as forms of creative resistance carried by social, feminist and indigenous movements (Zibechi 2012); and reflections on active hope and the politics of waiting (Mbembe 2020; Danowski & Viveiros de Castro 2014). As part of this endeavour, our approach invites us to take into account the entanglements of the Global South with other spaces and temporalities.
We propose to address the following questions from a variety of perspectives, including literary studies, media studies, political sciences, anthropology, activism, artistic creation and film: How do different apprehensions of precarious times invite us to (re)consider the present moment as we navigate through time and project ourselves into the future? How does precariousness stimulate creativity in the scientific, political, social, artistic and literary spheres in relation to the making of futures? How can we imagine social, political and economic transformations in such a context? How do different ‘arts of making’ the future in the Global South nourish, intertwine or conflict with one another?

Proposals for papers (max. 400 words) or panels (3 or 4 papers) to explore and discuss these issues should be submitted by 15 August 2025, to the following address: internationalforumtuebingen@gmail.com.